Season of Storm (32 page)

It was too late to visit, the hospital insisted, and in any case Wilfred Tall Tree was unconscious. He had suffered a sudden drop in blood pressure and might have a ruptured spleen. He should not be disturbed now, and
of course
he would live through the night....
 

They went to bed, in Johnny's big bed high above the ocean, but they did not make love. She lay in his arms, and they held each other and comforted each other, and spoke and thought of Wilf, who had been a friend of his grandfather's long ago on the reserve.

"Why did they take you off the reserve, Johnny?" Shulamith asked.

He grunted. "It was the fashion in social services then."

"The
fashion?
"
 

"The idea then was to break all the child's natural bonds to blood and place, and then somehow he would thrive and grow up free from the problems of his background."

"Jesus," she breathed. "How old were you?"

"Eight. It wasn't just Indian children. It was happening all over. Remember that at the same time as I was taken from my mother, in Britain they were shipping kids to Australia and the good life, telling them their parents and siblings were dead. Most of them were treated like slaves when they got there. All kinds of children were taken from their parents, when what was really needed was a bit of support for the family."

"Where did they take you?"

"I was at residential school for a while, and when my mother died I was put in a foster home. "

"So you never saw your mother or grandfather again?"

"I was allowed to visit the reserve when my mother died. And a couple of other times."

"That's grotesque! That's just sick!"

"The year I graduated from college," he said, "I went back to Eagle's Nest to visit my grandfather. He was a very old man then, one of the elders of the tribe." Johnny paused to breathe, and she knew it was an unfamiliar thing, to be telling someone this story. How much had it hurt him, kept inside all these years?

"I was proud of myself. I'd made it in the white world, and he was the only member of my family left. I went to tell him. He invited me in. He had a little two-room hut on the reserve, no plumbing, no amenities. And I sat there telling him about my successes. He heard me out, he listened to all my—" Johnny broke off, lifted an arm and rubbed his scalp.

"He didn't say anything till I'd finished. Then he just looked at me, and he asked if I had done it all as an Indian or as a white man." The pain was nearly a shriek threading his words, a counterpoint of strident anguish under the deep quiet voice. "Then he told me what I'd done, from his point of view. I had sold my birthright, traded away my heritage for acceptance into the society that was destroying my people."

"I'm sorry," she whispered, because there was nothing else to say.

"My Chopa name is Hawk Who Hunts in Winter. That name was given to me by my grandfather and the elders the day I went to Eagle's Nest for my mother's funeral. Everyone knew I would now never be allowed to return to the reserve. They told me I would be like the hawk who hunts in winter, that I would need to be tougher and harder than other children, that like the hawk I would live by my wits in a hostile landscape.

"The Chopa people have a long tradition of changing their names as they make transitions. That day—the day after I graduated—my grandfather told me that the Indian part of me had made no growth, that I was still the Hawk Who Hunts in Winter.

"He told me that, like our ancestor, Iniishewa, I had lost my soul to the white man's world, and it was my destiny now to wander apart from my people, searching for it. He told me an Indian could never find his soul in the white man's world, but that I had to accept the choice I had made.

"I didn't realize until that moment that I had unconsciously thought of the reserve as my one fixed point in a changing world. I had imagined it always there, unchanging, my true home. Not that I had visualized myself as going back there to live, but they had always been there, the people who would always accept me for all that I was, with whom I could be truly myself."

She had heard Jews speak like that of Israel. She protested, "But he wasn't right, your grandfather. You were accepted by white society long ago."

"Yes," he agreed. "It's among my own people I've been trying to claw out acceptance."

"None of it was your fault, anyway, Johnny. My God, a child of eight—what choice did you have?"

"I didn't have to renounce my status. I had that choice."

"Did you? With everyone in your world encouraging you to believe that was the great step in your maturity?" Smith demanded indignantly. "Did your foster parents think it was a good idea? I bet they did!"

"Yes, they did." He rubbed his head again, then stroked her arm. "But I've never blamed them, Peaceable Woman. They acted for what they thought was the best. It was the prevailing wisdom. They couldn't know my past would rise up and claim me. How could they? I didn't know myself."

***

Shulamith slept and woke in the comfort of Johnny's hold and smiled lazily at the rightness of things. "Do you remember that first morning," she asked him, "when we were sleeping down in the other room?"

"And you moved over and snuggled up against me," Johnny said.

"How do you know? You were asleep!"

"With you curled into me?" he laughed. "Not likely."

"I thought you were sound asleep—were you pretending?"

"I was trying to convince myself that it was not my urgent desire to make love to you," he said.

"Oh! Was it?" He smiled and kissed her, and her response tingled along her nerves.

"We do have that, don't we?" she said. "I mean, temporary insanity, okay, but we do actually have a strong physical attraction to each other. I mean, you don't feel this with everybody?"

"No," said Johnny, "I don't feel it with everybody."

She said hesitantly, "Johnny, have you ever heard of Stockholm Syndrome?"

"Captor bonding. Yes, I've heard of it," he said, and her heart sank.

"Do you think that's what this...what it was?"

He shrugged and his arms released her. He sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed. "It's a convenient explanation for what happened."

"But do you believe it?"

"Shulamith, I do not know." He turned to look at her over his shoulder. "Maybe. Probably. What happened happened. What difference does it make what name we give it?"

"Because...do you ever think that...that it might be real after all?"

His jaw tightened and his eyes were hooded. "No," he said. "I never do."

***

"Hello, Johnny," said the old man drowsily. "Hey—it's Peaceable Woman! How you been, eh?"

"Fine." Smith swallowed over a lump in her throat. Wilfred Tall Tree looked sick and pale and old. Two weeks ago she might have guessed his age at sixty or sixty-five. Now he looked eighty. "How about you?"

"Not so good," he replied matter-of-factly. "Hey, Johnny, those guys are gangsters, eh? They called me a drunken old Indian, and they beat me up." He tried to waggle his eyebrows. He laughed feebly and instantly winced. "I told them I don't drink that white man's poison, Johnny. I said that even though I don't have any more land to lose to the white man I figured I was better not to give him any more advantage than he already had." He laughed again, a dry throaty chuckle.

Johnny shook his head. "You got your licks in, then."

"Yeah, but so did they, Johnny."

"So I see. Do they know what's wrong with you yet?"

"Oh, a little of this, a little of that—you never been laid into, Johnny? You got no imagination?"

"Uh-huh," Johnny returned dryly. He was outwardly calm, but she could sense the angry tension in him. "How long were they working you over?"

"No time at all, Johnny." Wilf grinned. "Not much pleasure in kicking an old dog," he said, as though he were quoting a proverb. "They must have hit something interesting right off, 'cause I fainted on them pretty quick."

"Yeah," said Johnny dryly. "I can see that."

They spoke to a doctor, who gave them a clearer account of his health but was unwilling to speculate about what might have caused Wilf's injuries.

"Johnny," Smith said as they stood in the lobby about to part, "if we told them we were married, wouldn't they give up?"

"They might."

"Well, then...."

He looked at her. "You've never thought of telling them the truth?"

"If you mean, that you grabbed me that night, no."

"If it gets too rough for you, Peaceable Woman, tell them the truth," he said.

She was suddenly angry. Why didn't he appreciate what she had gone through to protect him? "Do you realize what you're saying?" she demanded. "You'd rather go to jail for kidnapping and extortion than let your people know you fell so much in love with a white woman—or thought you did—that you married her! Don't you see how ridiculous that is? Really, don't you see?"

He was looking at her impassively. "Oh, to hell with it!" she burst out. "Do what you damned well want! Go to prison—and take me with you! I just don't care anymore!" And she strode away from him through the hospital doors.

The phone was ringing when she got home. "Yes?' she answered abruptly.

The voice at the other end introduced himself as a television newsman. "I'm wondering if you can tell us more about your father's condition?" he asked.

"More about my...! Why, what's wrong with him?" And she had just been at the hospital and hadn't gone to see him!

"Oh, you don't know? We've been trying to get a statement all morning. According to the hospital, your father is too ill to testify to the Cartier Commission this afternoon. The special convening at the Royal Georgia Hospital has been cancelled, and they've warned us to cancel our planned news coverage."

She could hear him rattling paper on his desk.

"I uh, look, I only just got home. I haven't seen my father yet this morning. I'll have to phone the hospital."

Somehow she got him off the line and then with shaking fingers dialled her father's number at the hospital. A woman answered.

"Are you a nurse?" Smith babbled. "Is my father—how is my father?"

"Just a moment, please. All right, will you say something, please?"

"Dad?" she asked. "Dad, are you all right?"

"It's okay," her father said to someone, then his voice was in her ear. "Hello, Shulamith. Yes, I'm fine."

"But they say you've cancelled your appearance at the Cartier!"

"That's right."

"But what's happened? How sick are you?" She was wondering guiltily if the things she had said to her father had brought on another attack.

"Nothing to worry about," said her father. "The doctor and I decided I might be better off without the excitement. And I'm sure the Cartier Commission won't flounder from lack of my testimony."

"You mean, you're not going to testify
at all?
"
 

"I don't think the public hearing is sitting beyond next week."

She was confused. This wasn't like her father. He never let anything—including his health—stop him from doing what he wanted to do.

"You're sure you're all right?" she asked again, and when he had reassured her there was nothing for her to do but hung up.

The phone rang immediately. "Yes?" she answered guardedly, expecting another journalist, but it was Mel.

"Lew tells me you've got quite a song," he said. "He wants me to listen to it this afternoon. Care to be here?"

Smith laughed weakly. "Bring on hysteria!" she muttered to an uncomprehending Mel. Was this really her life that was going off like a skyrocket in all directions? Or had she somehow shifted into someone else's more tempestuous lifestream?

"Of course I want to be there," she told Mel. "What time?"

***

We didn't wait to fall in love

We loved and then we met

No promises

No thought of time

And no room for regret

I feel you watch me in my sleep

It's time for you to go

Already you're a memory

No one will ever know

So wake me up to say goodbye 'cause now it's over

I feel it in my heart and in your eyes

We'll have coffee

And for just a single moment

We'll whisper "maybe" to ourselves

Then say goodbye

We both know it doesn't happen very often

There'd be fewer lonely people if it did

We shared a moment out of time

But now it's over

Now all that's left is how to end

How to begin

So wake me up to say goodbye 'cause now it's over

I feel it in my heart and in your eyes

Another place, another time, a better season

But now it's over, all that's left is just

Goodbye.

It's kind of funny how it happens

In the first place

There seems to be so much to give

All through the night

But in the morning when you wake

And know deep down

It's a mistake

You have to wonder if it ever works

And hope it's not too late

So wake me up to say goodbye 'cause now it's over

I feel it in my heart and in your eyes

I know it's all been done before

And I won't ask for any more

Please wake me up to say goodbye

'Cause now it's over

Smith and Lew looked at each other with wide conspiratorial grins as the tousle-haired, black-eyed woman looked up from the music and sang the last note in her smoky, sexy voice. Before anyone spoke the singer took a deep breath and smiled broadly.

"Dynamite!" she announced. "Too much!"

That was pretty exactly what Smith thought about this intense, pale, black-haired woman who had just sung the song as though she owned it. Who would have thought the words she had written could sound so significant, so real?

They smiled at each other, and then, with one accord, Lew, Smith and the singer—whose name was Cimarron King—turned their eyes on Mel.